Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . uch a disfigured German landscape as I have imagined, appear stillmore sad and wretched ; whilst here the brilliant heavens transfigure even this desert intoHomeric clearness and illumination. Here we have a bronze epic : the German wilder-ness would be more comparable to a tearful elegy. o o 282 ITALY. I advise all tourists who do not care about classical poetry, who feel no enthusiasmfor the Iliad and the Odyssey, and prefer under all circumstance a sweet lyric to a seriousepic,—or such as only look upon the country with the eyes of a utilitarian economist
Italy from the Alps to Mount Etna . uch a disfigured German landscape as I have imagined, appear stillmore sad and wretched ; whilst here the brilliant heavens transfigure even this desert intoHomeric clearness and illumination. Here we have a bronze epic : the German wilder-ness would be more comparable to a tearful elegy. o o 282 ITALY. I advise all tourists who do not care about classical poetry, who feel no enthusiasmfor the Iliad and the Odyssey, and prefer under all circumstance a sweet lyric to a seriousepic,—or such as only look upon the country with the eyes of a utilitarian economist,—byno means to visit the Roman Campagna. Let him not come to the Campagna, for hewould simply not understand it, and would find this landscape stretching out before himbare and withered as a beggars hand, the most wearisome thing under the sun. Whilstthe painter, the poet, the thinker roam here and gaze with the deepest delight, and readancient oracles in the deeply furrowed lines of this dry outstretched plain, as in the palm. VELLETRI. of a hand, those other travellers would but yawn and think of the song about the journeyfrom Leipsic to Halle : Once from Leipsic to Halle a man set out ; Ha ! thought he, I shall see something new, no doubt ! but all that he saw was poplar trees, nothing but poplar-trees ! And even poplarsare not to be found here : only thistles the height of a man, gnarled thorn-bushes,low herbage all burnt up in summer, dust, heat, and the murderous malaria into thebargain :—that hydra which raises its hundred heads out of the marshes to destroy thewanderer! The messengers sent out by Moses to view the land of Canaan declaredthat the country devoured its inhabitants. And the same might emphatically be said ofthe Roman Marshes. How many travellers have I met with who were enraged at having been sent intothe Roman Campagna ! And how few who could discover and appreciate its solemnbeauty! In order to do so it is necessary to look at it seriously and reve
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